Six cities account for more than 40 per cent of students who qualified in the joint entrance examination (JEE-Advanced) of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) this year, with Jaipur right at the top of the list, according to a detailed analysis by the joint implementation committee, released by IIT Kharagpur, the organising IIT in 2014.

The other five cities with most number of successful candidates are Delhi, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Patna and Mumbai.

The six cities account for 10,882 or 40.07 per cent of the candidates who qualified this year. While 1,26,995 candidates registered this year, 1,19,581 appeared in both papers and 27,152 candidates qualified JEE (Advanced) 2014.

From Jaipur, which occupies the top position, 2,780 students qualified as against 10,116 registrations. Similarly, 2,349 qualified from Delhi as against 9,385 registrations, 2,337 qualified from Hyderabad out of 8,170 registrations, 1,448 qualified from Vijayawada out of 5,275 registrations and 1,107 qualified from Patna as against 6,425 registrations. Mumbai, which occupies the sixth position, has 861 students qualifying as against 3,257 registrations.

JEE (Advanced) 2014 was conducted under seven zonal IITs, in 98 cities and one centre in Dubai.

In fact, more than half the candidates who qualified this year were from just 11 cities. The remaining cities include Pune (730), Visakhapatnam (715), Indore (665), Kolkata (646) and Lucknow (631). The 11 cities account for 14,269 or 52.55 per cent of the qualified candidates.

According to academicians, good coaching facilities available to students in these cities contributed to their success.

An analysis of JEE (Advanced) 2013 reveals a similar trend. Last year too, the top six cities which had the largest chunk qualifying were Jaipur, Delhi, Hyderabad, Vijayawada, Patna and Mumbai, accounting for 38.93 per cent of students who qualified in 2013. Another similarity is that last year too, 11 cities had accounted for 50.66 per cent of the qualified students — or 10,696 students out of a total of 21,110 who qualified JEE (Advanced) 2013.

The 2014 IIT report further shows that overall city candidates did better — as against 67.67 per cent registration, 76 per cent qualified. While 19.27 per cent registered from towns, 14.22 per cent qualified and 9.77 per cent from villages qualified as against 13.06 per cent registrations.

“The statistics of place of schooling has remained same as in 2013 with cities contributing 76 per cent of the qualified candidates and villages a mere 9.77 per cent. When one looks at the distribution of qualified candidates across the zones, Bombay and Madras together constitute 45 per cent of the total,” says the report.

While no candidate qualified from Gangtok against 20 registrations, one each qualified from Itanagar (177 registered) and Port Blair (24 registered). The other cities, which have performed worse in terms of number of qualified candidates, include Shillong (five), Imphal (seven), Silchar (nine), Agartala (18), Malda (19), Palampur (20), Panaji (26), Jorhat (27), Shimla (32), Katihar (34) and Kharagpur (34).
The data reveals that among the states, which have the maximum candidates qualifying, Andhra Pradesh (18.32 per cent), Rajasthan (15.81 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (12.21 per cent), Maharashtra (8.52 per cent) and Delhi (NCT) (6.61 per cent) occupy the top five positions.